1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a simulation system and a simulation method, particularly to a simulation system for simulating a construction crane and a simulation method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
In modern building construction, a construction crane serves as a dominating role. Taking a steel-based building construction as an example, about 25% of the cost is directly in connection with the construction crane and the operation thereof. Therefore, the efficiency of the crane operation is an important issue in studying the building construction. A proper construction crane simulation can provide digitized and visualized information such that an operator thereof is capable of obtaining sufficient information on the constructing process through the crane simulation in advance, thereby avoiding problems possibly occurring in the actual crane operation. Besides, the current construction crane operation is more complicated than the traditional ones. The outline of the constructing member of a building is more versatile, thus a precise and careful construction crane operation is required. In addition, a prefabricated construction method employs more construction crane operation. Therefore, in the modern construction technology, a precise planning of the crane operation on a computer is considerably required.
In recent years, the computer-visualized technology in crane behavior is widely used to facilitate the planning and training of crane operation, with any limitations on space and time. It is easier for a crane operator to understand the planning of crane operation in computer visualization than in conventional paper planning. The simulation systems employing the computer visualization technology include: teaching simulation system, semi-automatic simulation system and automatic simulation system. In the teaching simulation system, two companies, i.e. the SimLog and the CMLabs, each provide a commercialized simulation system of a construction crane operation. The teaching simulation system provides customization and harmonized environment for a construction crane operator to manipulate a virtual construction crane. Such a system can customize a specialized operation scenario upon the special requirement of the customer.
The semi-automatic simulation system generally employs animation software, such as the 3D studio Max or the Maya. The main approach of the semi-automatic simulation system is to define an important picture or instruction for a virtual target. The semi-automatic simulation system automatically derives a series of actions. A user has to set key pictures in the animation. Such a technique is suitable to plan the moving direction of the construction crane during the crane operation. However, if the precise movements of the construction crane are to be simulated, the user must input a lot of key pictures for determining the reasonable actions in each picture. Therefore, it is not efficient to animate complicated construction crane actions.
The automatic simulation system incorporates modern search processing, trial-and-error technique from digitized movement science, and movement planning to produce movement of a virtual construction crane automatically. The user only needs to set the initial conditions of a constructing scene and a computer will determine a highly efficient, safe and non-colliding route for simulating the construction crane behavior. Such a technique in general is used to assist construction crane planning and allows an operator, to know the defective aspects of the plan and resolve them on the computer in advance, by optimization of the construction crane operation route. However, the most difficult point of such an automatic simulation system is whether the planning route or the movement of the construction crane can be exactly implemented in a practical crane operation.
Due to versatilities of the constructing member of a building, the modern construction crane operation is more complicated than the traditional ones. The simulation system requires detailed description on the construction crane behavior in order to increase the reality of the simulation. As a result, the above-mentioned simulation systems are merely used in simulation simple scene.
In order to achieve other objectives, such as planning the crane operation and verifying the feasibility and the reasonability of the plan of the crane operation, the present invention proposes a technique for simulating the practical crane operation, so as to increase the virtual reality of the crane operation through simulating physical behaviors close to the real environment. Thus, the whole crane operation can be simulated in detail, and the feasibility and the colliding possibility in the construction route can also be evaluated easily. As a result, the construction crane operation plan is more reliable.